ABSTRACT
Few people show up at the doors of monasteries to enter religious life, while many wish to spend a few days there, to the point that in some French monasteries one has to book a year in advance to be sure of having a particular weekend. Visiting a monastery is becoming increasingly more popular, but the motives of the visits are very different from one visitor to another. Monasteries have thus become places that welcome the whole range of current spiritual and religious positions without their original radical religious identity being an obstacle. Despite their distance from the outside world, which was originally geographical, and their enclosure, the majority of monastic communities traditionally have a guesthouse and therefore offer hospitality. The traditional visitors to monasteries were pilgrims and retreatants guests with an essentially religious motivation to be there. The places of conviviality and leisure in the monasteries, such as the restaurants, make it possible to welcome a non-religious public.
